In March I posted some information and photos of plants I observe for Penn State’s “shady invader” project. This week I figured out that the lone honeysuckle bush in the holler is an Amur honeysuckle, another one of the species being tracked.

Earth Observing-1 wasn’t supposed to survive as long as it did. Operating on a shoestring budget, the spartan satellite outlasted its warranty 15-fold, and changed the way we do space-based imaging of our planet.

The satellite trained its observant lens on the ashes of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It captured the flood that followed in Hurricane Katrina’s wake. It took stock of the devastating tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. It was the first to map active lava flows from space, and the first to track re-growth in the deforested Amazon.

But all things must pass. EO-1 shut down last Thursday, in orbit, some 440 miles above Earth. It was 17.